Phases 2 and 3 of the PM-3 Commercial Arrangement Area (CAA) project are being carried out offshore Malaysia/Vietnam. Phase 1 oil production commenced in July 1997. Phases 2 and 3 achieved peak production early 2004.

The PM-3 CAA project will extract oil and gas from six different offshore fields located throughout a 1,350km² area in the overlapping zone between Malaysia and Vietnam.

The project involves development of the West Bunga Kekwa, East Bunga Kekwa-Cai Nuoc, East Bunga Raya, West Bunga Raya, NW Bunga Raya and Bunga Seroja fields, located in the southeast portion of the block.

Talisman Malaysia is the operator for the PM-3 CAA project with a 41.44% interest. Petronas Carigali holds a 46.06% interest and PetroVietnam Investment & Development Company holds a 12.5% interest. A portion of the unitized East Bunga Kekwa - Cai Nuoc field extends onto Vietnam Block 46-Cai Nuoc. Talisman Vietnam is operator and holds a 33.15% interest in Block 46-Cai Nuoc. Petronas Carigali (Vietnam) holds a 36.85% interest and PetroVietnam Investment & Development Company holds a 30%
interest.

DRILLING

Development drilling of the 60-well programme commenced in October 2002 and is planned to continue throughout 2004.

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DEVELOPMENT

The project centres on the installation of four new wellhead platforms, a central processing platform, compression annexe platform, floating storage offloading vessel and inter-field pipelines. These facilities have provide the development with a production capacity of 60,000bbls/d of oil and 270mmcf/d of gas.

The conversion of the 98,567dwt crude tanker into a Floating Storage and Offloading (FSO) was carried out by MSE. The completed vessel sailed away on 23 August 2003. From an original 231.6m, the vessel's hull length was increased to 246.5m to increase storage. The cargo tank capacity was increased from 688,728bbls to 853,853bbls.

The Bunga Raya A 9,000t central processing platform stands next to the existing Bunga Raya B platform. The topsides were installed in a novel floatover operation using the COSCO Class 2 dynamic positioned (DP) Heavy Lift Vessel (HLV) Tai An Kou. This was the first floatover performed using DP control and the first such operation for this vessel.

This operation was carried out as part of the EPCI (engineering, procurement, construction and installation) contract, awarded by field operator Talisman Malaysia to Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI). Noble Denton provided engineering and supervision assistance. The vessel was provided under a separate sub-contract by NMA-COSCO. Noble Denton also provided engineering support and superintendency to NMA-COSCO for the Tai An Kou and its sister ship Kang Shen Kou.

The Tai An Kou was manoeuvred carefully astern between the jacket legs until the surge fenders made contact with the pre-installed elastomeric fenders on each side of the jacket. Receiver cones comprising an elastomeric 'spring' absorbed the initial impact energy as the topside was lowered. The final 100mm gap was closed by releasing sand from the sand jacks built into the bottoms of the Leg Mating Units.

EXPORT

Gas sales will be at the wellhead under a long-term contract to Petronas and PetroVietnam. Petronas Carigali was responsible for building a new 24in, 170km gas pipeline from PM-3 CAA to the Resak Platform. PetroVietnam is building an 18in, 330km gas pipeline from PM-3 CAA to Ca Mau in southern Vietnam.

Engineering design and procurement activities are ongoing for the Ca Mau project and first deliveries of gas to Vietnam are slated for 2005-2006. Petronas will take the entire sales gas volume until the Ca Mau project is ready to accept gas.

The Bunga Orkid/Bunga Pakma gas field complex in the north end of Block PM-3 CAA will be required to meet long-term gas sales commitments and is targeted for development in the 2007. A successful exploration well and two successful appraisal wells were drilled in this area during 2003.